


tal vashoth

by CopperCaravan



Series: Dragon Age Prompt Fills [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Qunari Culture and Customs, Saarebas, Tamin Adaar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:44:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fill for a tumblr prompt: Tamin (f!Adaar) + things you said when you were scared<br/>Tamin meets The Iron Bull and things only get more complicated from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tal vashoth

**Author's Note:**

> Since I don't care about canon at all: my Adaar is Tal-Vashoth. Her daughter's name is Ilette; she's six and she is a mage like her mom (and everyone loves her and I'm full of fluffy domestic headcanons).

He must see her flinch, for his hand is reaching for the axe at his back the moment the thought enters her head ( _kill him kill him kill him_ ). She doesn’t—but she almost does. And she’s glad she didn’t try because she may not have succeeded. He’s not arvaarad, at least, though Ben-Hassrath is hardly better. The arvaarad will surely follow.

She’d tried to be rid of him. Oh, she’d tried! _Send the Qunari,_ they’d said. Never mind that she’s saarebas. Never mind that she’s Tal-Vashoth. Never mind that she’s specifically, purposefully, absolutely _not_ Qunari. That she despises the Qun, that it despises her right back, oh no! _Send the Qunari. Send the horn head._ And now they won’t even let her make the decision.

“I’m sorry, Iron Bull, but the Inquisition will not be requiring your services.”

“An alliance is an alliance, my dear, and a tool is a tool.”

Tamin stays stone-faced. She has a great deal of respect for Madam de Fer (despite that ridiculously offensive hat), but this is no alliance. This is a trap. The Qun is always a trap.

There may be something to be said about keeping one’s enemies close—no doubt Vivienne would suggest that too, if she knew the scope of the situation—but Tamin cannot afford to keep her enemies close. They must stay as far from her as possible, as far from her daughter as possible.

But no amount of hedging will deter Madam de Fer _or_ Cassandra, who argues that Leliana and Josephine will handle the finer details. “You can trust Leliana,” Cassandra says later. “She will keep a watchful eye.”

Tamin thinks of her daughter, wandering around Haven without her, little hand gripping at Josephine’s skirts, and she knows she cannot afford trust either.

This breach and its mark keep her prisoner. _She_ is the tool the Inquisition will wear past its use.

...

For the most part, Iron Bull keeps outside Haven’s walls. This suits Tamin just fine for she rarely lets her daughter wander toward the training yard (or the “ex-” Templar who trains the troops there).

It is her child who is the trouble (who is _always_ the trouble). She knows The Iron Bull is here and she misses the Valo-Kas. _Just like me._

Tamin knew it would happen; it was inevitable. Ilette is too curious to heed subtle directions and too stubborn to heed clear commands. _Far too much like me._

Still, as prepared as she thought she had been for this moment, the breath is knocked right out of her when it happens. Ilette standing on her toes and reaching toward Bull’s horns; his hulking shoulders bent over her, making her seem even smaller than she is. Tamin was wrong: there can be no preparing for this. And she’s storming across the yard, shoving recruits out of her way, and screaming her daughter’s name before she even realizes what she’s doing.

The girl, of course, doesn’t understand the frantic tears, or why her mother’s hands grasp her so tightly when she is scooped into Tamin’s arms. She’s told Ilette so little of the Qun and the Qunari, so little of the place that was home until it wasn’t.

But the Bull knows. He regards Tamin carefully, taking in the dishevelment, the fear, the panic and, as always, giving nothing of himself away.

“Not her,” Tamin says, something between a threat and a plea. “Not her.”

The deepest parts of her want to believe that his little nod of acknowledgement is honest, that—at the very least—he will see this tiny child in her arms and not see “demon,” not see “saarebas,” not see anything worth the notice of the Qunari.

But she will take no risks.

...

After Redcliffe, Tamin often wakes in terror and cold sweats, holding her daughter close.

Ilette had not been there in that dark future and Tamin hadn’t known if that was a blessing or...

_That_ Bull hadn’t been able to tell her anything. He hadn’t known. She and Dorian had vanished and the others had never made it home from Redcliffe Castle. “I wouldn’t have done it though,” he’d sworn. “Wouldn’t have turned her over after you disappeared.”

When they’d made it back—back to Redcliffe, back to Haven, back to _now_ —Tamin hadn’t told Bull what he’d said. She had no way to know if it was true and letting Bull think she trusted him was almost as dangerous as doing it.

Ilette is bundled in her arms, elbows and knees poking into her ribs as she tries to wriggle from her mother’s grasp and stretch out on her own side of the mattress. Tamin complies and loosens her grip. Just this once.

...

Three hours before Corypheus brings his army down on Haven, Bull asks her if she will join him for a drink. She says no, though she stays close by, watching Ilette listen attentively to some of Varric’s less bawdy tales. It doesn’t escape her notice (how could it?) that Bull plops down on the bench next to her, mug in hand, though he is careful to keep a fair distance. She stills and calms herself when magic crackles along her skin, reminds herself that she has fought with him quite often of late, that she can _win_ if she must.

Three hours after Corypheus brings his army down on Haven, she is marching through the snow and she is sure she will die and whatever gods there are can damn her for all she cares. She will not die until she finds them, will not die until she knows her daughter is safe.

“Not gonna just leave you out here, Boss,” he’d said. Why had she brought _him_?

“You get the hell out of here and find my child! You get my daughter out of that Chantry! I don’t care if you have to leave everyone else behind!” Why had she begged this of _him_?

_“I wouldn’t have done it,” his ghost had promised. “Wouldn’t have turned her over after you disappeared.”_

If it was all a lie, she will kill The Iron Bull and mount his horns like a fucking goat’s.

...

They reach Skyhold, but more than that, they reach rest.

As they climb the mountains, Ilette regales her exhausted-but-recovering mother with tales of the Bull’s antics: piggy-back rides through the deep snow, finger-painting vitaar (both traditional designs and Ilette’s more _creative_ ideas), stories of giants and squirrels and no mention at all of saarebas or demons or the Qun. She has been quite pleased with all the attention lavished on her by the Chargers as well—to hear Ilette tell it, they are less a mercenary company and more a private entourage.

So when they finally reach Skyhold, Ilette skips off to find Rocky and Dalish while Tamin sleeps for nine solid hours.

...

“Tal-Vashoth,” they call him.

What strikes her most, about the entire encounter, is the _rage._

She has hated the Qun since she was seven years old and a wisp formed from nothing at the wave of her hand. She has hated the Qunari since the moment after that, when she heard horrified gasps from her Tamas, felt hands rough and heavy with fear and disdain shove her from her home with the other children. They took everything from her and gave her a collar and leash instead just because they were _afraid._ And now? Now they _should_ be.

Bull is afraid of her too, sometimes. She’s seen it—more, now that she’s been looking. But still, he fights for her. He fights _with_ her. He stands at her side. _He is Ben-Hassrath,_ she’d told herself. _Of course he stays close._

But he is not Hissrad now and when the people who used to be his people try to kill him, with words and knives and poison, she is filled with rage.

The Qun uses people like tools and they think The Iron Bull has lost all use.

She’d felt the same way about the Inquisition, but she is Inquisitor now and neither of them will be tools. She’s faced the Qun once before; she can do it again. She will.

...

“Tal-Va- _fucking-_ shoth.”

“Well I’m sorry it’s so fucking awful to be a rabid dog like _me,_ ” she spits, grateful a second too late that Ilette is not here to witness such an outburst.

He doesn’t apologize—not that she expects him to—but he does meet her eyes for just a second before he looks toward the floor.

She doesn’t apologize either, though she knows he is hurting too. Instead, she sinks onto the bench beside him and takes a deep breath.

“You knew exactly what I would tell you to do,” she says.

After a moment, “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t have to do what I said.”

After another moment, “Yeah.”

Silence, then. The tavern is bustling around them—music and chatter and drunkenness (and a clanging sort of racket from upstairs that is undoubtedly Sera)—but the silence between the two of them seems to drown all that out.

“You want a drink?”

“Yes.”

...

She’d hoped that by now, she wouldn’t be afraid.

There is no Qun in her castle.

There is no Qunari in her bed.

Bull is Tal-Vashoth, whether he likes it or not but the truth—and they both know it—is that he does.

The first night, she almost feels guilty for testing him. _Katoh,_ she says, before her clothes even come off. He’d expected it, she sees, and he is not angry.

The second time, she _does_ feel guilty for testing him. _Katoh,_ she says, the moment she decides she really does want this. He is still not angry and he stays there in her room until Ilette comes bounding in to tell them all about Krem’s latest story.

The third time, she is sure, but she isn’t sure that _he_ is. _Katoh_ , she says, and she doesn’t give him a reason at all. He is still not angry.

The fourth time, she is sure, but she isn’t _sure_ she’s sure because he is _still_ not angry. “Katoh,” he says. “I don’t blame you. I don’t regret a thing.”

...

“Kadan,” he calls her, and lets her tie the not-so-little-nor-easily-won trinket around his neck. He is not afraid.

She’s not afraid either, now, and that’s why she’d made it for him, why she looks back at him now and she can say it too. “Kadan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, if you're wondering why I skipped over "Demands of the Qun," it's because I've already written that bit: make me, which is also part of this prompt fill series, if you're interested.


End file.
